I'm going through a difficult time in my (not so) newly adoptive city. I've been in Montreal almost 7 years now, and yet it still seems new to me. One of the most challenging aspects of moving to a new city is finding your home within the social and business community you've adopted. In particular, I'm finding it particularly challenging being a Franco-Manitoban in a predominantly francophone Québec. Not quite English enough for western Canadians to pronounce my name correctly (Mo-Neek just doesn't sound right!), not quite French enough for the québecois!
And now I've signed myself up for a business networking event tonight (99% French-speaking participants). Not only will I be judged immediately by my ability to fit in, but future business opportunities depend on my being able to impress in the 90 seconds I have with each participant that sits across the table from me (this is a particularly recent phenomenon in business networking: speed-dating for business seekers). Sounds like a losing proposition...in fact, it is.
So tonight I'm going to take a different approach. I'm just going to be... me. With comfortable clothes instead of the business suit and high-heel pumps that usually make these events physically unbearable. With my open and collaborative approach instead of the sophisticated, know-it-all business arrogance you get from most participants. I'll smile and shake people's hands, even though I didn't use Crest whitening strips, nor do I have the $50 to get my nails done. Instead of drawing comments about my "accent", I'll let them talk about themselves, what their business dreams are, and what trivial issues stand between them and the realization of these dreams. I'll give them 90 seconds of "wouldn't it be fabulous" (and then I'll gently remind them that I can help them get there).
I'll do all of this because I can't really do anything else. The other stuff, it's just not me, and I think when I try to be that way, people realize that I'm not being authentic and don't respond. After all, the world created me, this unique composition of how I look, how I talk, what I think and say, how I feel. Maybe the people I meet tonight will get a kick out of talking to someone just a bit different from the rest.
I encourage you to do the same. When I think of all the people I know, the ones I want to keep in touch with are the ones that had some unique approach to life, or stood out in some way. Something that made them stay in my memory. Let's not be unmemorable, let's make sure that everyone we meet today and in the days to follow remembers us for something unique about us. As long as that unique thing represents us authentically, we simply can't go wrong.
